A circle closed after 70 years...
Discussion
This will be a long post so to summarise:
A series of coincidences.
Train crash 70 years ago. My Dad, a young conscript soldier recovers a body from the train. He remembers the name of the dead man. I remember the story when I hear the name mentioned on TV. 70 years after the crash I meet the son of the dead man who my dad brought out of the train.
Here's the story.
http://m.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/14205060.Barel...
In 1946 my Dad was a 19 year old soldier in the Durham Light Infantry. On evenings to amuse themselves the lads would give presentations to each other about their lives as civilians.
This particular January evening it was my Dad's turn. He left school at 16 and became a local paper reporter. His lecture centred on a big mining disaster he had to cover then moved on to a hypothetical scenario about how a reporter would cover a big story. He used the example of a train crash.
Later that night they were hauled out of bed and sent as a rescue team to the site of a train crash where people died and many others injured.
My Dad was detailed to recover bodies and he brought the first body out. He looked for identification. The dead man was called Golightly.
Over the years he would occasionally hear the name and would wonder if it was any relation to the man who he brought out of the train.
That was it really. I was born in 1970 and up until my father's death in 2006 he must have mentioned it to me a handfull of times.
The other day, I walk into the living room and the TV is on. I'm not paying much attention, it's some story about a memorial for a train crash but my ears prick up when the man being interviewed mentions his father's name was Golightly.
I rewind the report and watch it before getting on line and finding this man's contact details.
I leave him a voicemail, saying nothing more than please contact me, it's to do with the crash.
He calls. I really don't know what to say so I cut to the chase and tell him my father removed his father's body from the crash.
There I am, someone born nearly 25 years after a train crash 70 years ago, talking to a man born four years before the crash about our fathers.
We met in Durham Cathedral at last night's memorial service.
It was for me a satisfying thing to do to represent my father all these years later. Had he still been alive, I am sure he'd have gone. I bet he never imagined as a 19 year old soldier that night 70 years ago that his unborn son would meet the son, and grandchildren, of the man whose body he was recovering On a January evening in 2016.
My Dad went back into journalism, becoming a Fleet Street journalist, foreign correspondent, editor,TV producer and author in his eventful life. Torpedoed as a kid of 13 in a liner in the North Atlantic, solder who went to that train crash, reporter kidnapped by the Mujahadin, deported from Iran, friend and enemy of various politicians over the decades, the man to get the first TV interview with a Royal, and a host of other things, including being my father, teacher and best friend.
It was good to be part of a footnote to his early life, ten years after he died.
A series of coincidences.
Train crash 70 years ago. My Dad, a young conscript soldier recovers a body from the train. He remembers the name of the dead man. I remember the story when I hear the name mentioned on TV. 70 years after the crash I meet the son of the dead man who my dad brought out of the train.
Here's the story.
http://m.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/14205060.Barel...
In 1946 my Dad was a 19 year old soldier in the Durham Light Infantry. On evenings to amuse themselves the lads would give presentations to each other about their lives as civilians.
This particular January evening it was my Dad's turn. He left school at 16 and became a local paper reporter. His lecture centred on a big mining disaster he had to cover then moved on to a hypothetical scenario about how a reporter would cover a big story. He used the example of a train crash.
Later that night they were hauled out of bed and sent as a rescue team to the site of a train crash where people died and many others injured.
My Dad was detailed to recover bodies and he brought the first body out. He looked for identification. The dead man was called Golightly.
Over the years he would occasionally hear the name and would wonder if it was any relation to the man who he brought out of the train.
That was it really. I was born in 1970 and up until my father's death in 2006 he must have mentioned it to me a handfull of times.
The other day, I walk into the living room and the TV is on. I'm not paying much attention, it's some story about a memorial for a train crash but my ears prick up when the man being interviewed mentions his father's name was Golightly.
I rewind the report and watch it before getting on line and finding this man's contact details.
I leave him a voicemail, saying nothing more than please contact me, it's to do with the crash.
He calls. I really don't know what to say so I cut to the chase and tell him my father removed his father's body from the crash.
There I am, someone born nearly 25 years after a train crash 70 years ago, talking to a man born four years before the crash about our fathers.
We met in Durham Cathedral at last night's memorial service.
It was for me a satisfying thing to do to represent my father all these years later. Had he still been alive, I am sure he'd have gone. I bet he never imagined as a 19 year old soldier that night 70 years ago that his unborn son would meet the son, and grandchildren, of the man whose body he was recovering On a January evening in 2016.
My Dad went back into journalism, becoming a Fleet Street journalist, foreign correspondent, editor,TV producer and author in his eventful life. Torpedoed as a kid of 13 in a liner in the North Atlantic, solder who went to that train crash, reporter kidnapped by the Mujahadin, deported from Iran, friend and enemy of various politicians over the decades, the man to get the first TV interview with a Royal, and a host of other things, including being my father, teacher and best friend.
It was good to be part of a footnote to his early life, ten years after he died.
silverfoxcc said:
That would make a bloody good film, esp if you can get the screenwriters not to put in a lot of b
ks
What? The train crash or the rest of my old man's life?ksI am being urged to write a book about my Dad's life - especially as those he worked with in the 1950s 60s and 70s are fading fast. I would love to, but I'd need a firm offer with a publisher first. It would be an enjoyable but time consuming and expensive effort.
It's actually not the first time I've had to take car of my old man's 'unfinished business'
http://m.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-irel...
http://m.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-irel...
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